Traffic jam ‘supermarket’

Nigeria gives rise to new things on a daily basis. For many, commuting daily from home to work is time consuming. Precious time is usually wasted and this is characterised by traffic congestion. Yetunde Oladeinde and Olamide Lois Akiode take a look at ‘traffic supermarket’ which is one of the fallouts of the daily traffic jam.

Johnson Alade is a company executive. He works with one of the oil companies in the Lekki axis of Lagos and lives in Ikorodu. He has been working with the oil firm for over 15 years, although when he joined the company his pay was big compared to his colleagues who joined the other sectors of the economy. He decided to quickly invest in building a house to his taste. He bought a piece of land in the outskirts of Ikorodu, the land is made up of three plots. On it he got an architect friend to landscape and design a modest house for him and has been living there for the last 10 years.

Although now as a senior executive in the oil firm he works for he could afford to rent a house in Lekki or Victoria Island, he decided against this because he felt his own property that he designed for himself to suit his taste is enough. He, therefore, decided to live there despite the inconveniences he had to go through to get to and fro office on a daily basis. To cushion the effect he employed a driver so he could sleep throughout the trip.

Due to this tough schedule, he spends most of his time in the traffic commuting from Ikorodu to the Lekki corridor on a daily basis. Alade is not alone. Mrs. Joke Oluwatise, a mother of three is a secretary working at the head office of a new generation bank at the Victoria Island. She leaves her house in the Sango area of Ogun State at 5am daily to meet her 8am resumption time and may not get back home until 9 or 10pm on a daily basis.

Alade and Oluwatise are the typical 8to5 workers in Lagos who spend most of their time in traffic and have to juggle their time between the hectic traffic and fulfilling their responsibilities as parents – either as wife or father.

For them the weekend is usually a time to rest and catch up with other family engagements that might have escaped their attention during the week. It is also the time they use to do some little shopping and buy things. Most of their shoppings are done in the ubiquitous Lagos traffic jam!

A supermarket for all things

So what can you shop for in traffic? Many residents Lagos do their shopping on the streets in the traffic. Sesan Ajayi, a trader said, “Never underestimate the power of the traffic supermarket. You can get almost everything sellable under the sun. From bottle water, belts, boxers, phone chargers, blenders, doormats, basketball set, dog chains, books and even toilet seats.”

Interestingly, it also includes street stalls where you can quickly buy a recharge card. “When you buy recharge cards in the traffic, it is because you want to reach out to someone urgently. Unfortunately, a number of the recharge cards sold in traffic are not good. By the time you realise this, it is almost too late and you just cannot trace the person again,” Ajayi added.

Many articles are on sale in the Lagos traffic. Colorful sunglasses and other victual and the price can be as cheap as they come. A pair of a colorful sunglass can go for as low as N500 from a first price of N3000!

In the heavy traffic a young man appears from nowhere and pushes a pack of rat poison across advertising its efficacy: “ Dis one na kill and dry. Na bomb!” As he opens his mouth to convince you further, you notice that his mouth smelled strongly of local gin (ogogoro). “Na wah o! You people dey do as if you no get rat for house. You better buy one and stop all this yeye shakara wey una dey do,” he advises.

The traffic eases and he was gone. Guess it was good riddance for all. But he was not alone; here you find another set of hawker quaffing the stuff with their wares nearby. They all run towards the vehicle and simultaneously they ask if you want to buy whatever it was that they were carrying. A lady swoops on the car in front of ours with a set of kitchen knives for sale. The driver is startled and he quickly pulls up the car glasses.

You are at a bend and the road is quite narrow, cars, buses and the motorcycles (okada) are jostling for space. It also affects pedestrian flow and there is confusion in the air as those affected hurl abuses at each other. In the process, a teenage girl hawking oranges is pushed over. Oh dear! She squats low to pick the dirty oranges in a polythene bag but some were just ‘irredeemable’. Next you wonder if she was going to take them home to report the loss or was she going to find water to wash and later sell them off. You can be sure that she is most likely to do the latter.

A middle aged man shows up this time around and guess what; he is selling door mats, belts and napkins. As if she was reading your mind, she says “If you don’t need this one I have other things”, she says in Yoruba thrusting a pack of pants in your face. Embarrassed? “No that is not the motive. They just want to sell something to somebody as fast as possible”, an older woman says apologetically.

The traffic flows once more and you are spared from the ordeal of buying oversized pants that you do not need. The traffic is faster now but the supermarket is not yet closed. A motorist who is obviously starving sights a ‘gala merchant’ having his siesta under a tree and beckons. The vehicle moves on before he gets there and frantically, the hawkers runs after his potential customer in frenzy.

He falls with wares spilling all over and drivers that could be compared to modern day Good Samaritan applied their brakes allowing him to pick the pieces together. Luckily, he does this in a jiffy and still manages to catch up with his customer. Another treat was close by, it was a trailer honking like a lunatic and he quickly crossed over to the other side. Well, the stress was worth the while; he had sold over a dozen pieces in less than three minutes.

Regina Okpofe, a banker tells you that she hardly finds time to shop because of her busy schedule. “So most times, I do all my shopping in traffic. The Mallams now pack items like tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes and carrots in polythene bags. It saves me a lot of time but the only snag is that sometimes the items are not as fresh as you would have loved them to be”.

Like Okpofe, Tolu Akinsola tells you that she has been a victim a number of times and so she has vowed never to shop in the traffic again. “There was a day I saw this lovely wrist watch in traffic and I bought it. Unfortunately, when I got home, I realised that it wasn’t working and in the place where the batteries should be, I found some stones.”

Akinsola continues: “One other place that I have vowed never to buy things is in the bus. Here you find a number of people hawking all kinds of miracle drugs.” Convincingly, he marketed it this way: “This is a golden opportunity. This drug is not just a blood purifier; it does many things at the same time. It is just N100 for each sachet; you can never get it for the same price in the market’,

Unfortunately, I bought something that totally disorganized my system. Of course, they put expiry dates on some of these items but you can sure that those dates were forged”.

The bespectacled lady goes on to tell you that things are better now than they were in the past. “I think things are getting better. In the past, people hawked all kinds of things and it was common to find blood touts on streets close to public hospitals. They were always loitering about waiting for anybody who needed human blood. I know that the government has tried to bring sanity to street trading but you see they exist because there are needs to be met.”

In some parts of the world street and public trading is well managed and consumers have a level of protection. They issue licenses to traders and check that they follow certain guidelines to operate. These guidelines are usually set out in the country’s local bylaws. In legal terms a hawker is defined as ‘any person who carries or takes about any goods, wares or merchandise for sale not in pursuance of any invitation.’

Alade and Oluwatise would continue to shop in traffic for as long as their work places does not allow them to get home early and visit their chopice supermarkets except during public holidays.